Our kitchen
Fire, spice and patience
There is nothing secret about how we cook. It just takes a hot oven, whole spices and time.
The fire
A clay oven, fed with charcoal
The tandoor is the first thing lit each afternoon and the last thing to cool. Charcoal burns at the bottom of the clay pot; the walls soak up the heat until they are hot enough to cook a naan in the time it takes to turn around.
Meat, paneer and vegetables spend the night in yoghurt and spice, then go down into the coals on long skewers. They come out smoky, blistered at the edges and still juicy inside. That char is the flavour we build the menu around.
The spice box
Toasted and cracked, ground right here
Every Indian kitchen has a masala dabba, a round tin of the spices used every day. Ours holds these, bought whole and ground in small batches so they still smell of something when they reach the pan.
Kashmiri chilli
Deep red colour with a gentle heat. It gives the tandoor marinades and the rogan josh their colour.
Turmeric
Earthy and warm. A little goes into the dal and almost every curry base.
Cumin
Toasted dry until it crackles, then into the rice, the raita and the lassi.
Black cardamom
Smoky and camphor-like, for the biryani and the slow lamb.
Fenugreek
The leaves, dried and crushed, finish the butter chicken.
Fennel
Sweet and cooling, the backbone of Kashmiri cooking.
Black pepper
The heat in Chettinad cooking, cracked fresh for every pot.
Saffron
A few threads soaked in warm milk for the biryani and kulfi.
The slow pot
Some things can't be hurried
Onions are cooked until they are dark and sweet before anything else goes in. The black lentils for the dal makhani go on the stove the night before and simmer until they turn to velvet. Lamb shoulder braises low and slow with fennel and dried ginger.
None of it is complicated. It just needs someone to stay with the pot, so we do.
Breads are cooked to order, never kept warm.
Regional, not generic
Every dish, its own region
There is no single Indian cuisine, so we don't cook one. Each dish follows the region it belongs to.
Punjab
The tandoor itself, butter chicken, dal makhani, chana masala, saag and the breads.
Kashmir
Rogan josh, cooked with fennel, dried ginger and Kashmiri chilli rather than onion and tomato.
Goa
Prawn curry soured with kokum and tamarind, and the kokum sherbet.
Chettinad
Chicken with black pepper, star anise and roasted coconut.
Lucknow
Lamb dum biryani, cooked in a pot sealed with dough so it steams in its own perfume.
Mumbai
Pani puri, samosa chaat and the street snacks we couldn't leave off.